Top Decile jumps right back into the fray

NEW ORLEANS – With a filly as good as Top Decile might prove to be, a horseman might skip the first round of 3-year-old stakes during January at Fair Grounds and await the more lucrative and important second round in February.

But Top Decile’s connections saw good reason to go on with the filly this winter and no reason to stop, which is why she starts here Saturday in the $125,000 Silverbulletday Stakes. Top Decile is one of nine fillies entered in the race at one mile and 70 yards on dirt, and she should vie for favoritism with undefeated Golden Rod Stakes winner West Coast Belle.

Victorious at Saratoga in her debut, Top Decile finished a close second in the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita. In one sense, that is a flashy r é sum é , but Top Decile has yet to actually win a stakes race, something trainer Al Stall and owners Klaravich Stable and William Lawrence hope to accomplish Saturday.

“After the Breeders’ Cup, we kept her in the barn and gave her a busman’s holiday,” said Stall. “We figured we had our breather during November, and she didn’t act like she needed a vacation after the Breeders’ Cup. She came out bright-eyed, didn’t lose any weight.”

Stall wants Top Decile to improve and blossom as winter wears on into spring, but he points out that the filly just raced 10 weeks ago. All her preparations have gone as planned, Stall said, and Top Decile, relaxed and classy, makes things easy on her handlers.

“She’s sharp, but she’s stayed sharp since she last ran,” said Stall.

That was evident in Top Decile’s final work for the Silverbulletday on Sunday. Less than a week before a race, Stall wasn’t looking for anything major from the filly, yet her half-mile drill in 49 seconds still was the fifth-fastest of 114 such works recorded Sunday.

On Monday, the day Top Decile was entered, Stall sent out another very promising 3-year-old filly, Harbour Island, to score her second eye-catching win at this meet. A 1 1/4-length maiden winner Dec. 18, Harbour Island won a first-level allowance race by 2 1/4 lengths Monday, her six-furlong time of 1:13 on a deep, laboring track nowhere near reflective of the performance’s quality.

By My Pal Charlie, Harbour Island is out of the mare Vibrant and thus is a half-sister to 2014 Louisiana Derby winner Vicar’s in Trouble. With two wins, Harbour Island will wind up in a stakes next out, but when, where, and at what distance is uncertain. Stall, though, said he would consider stretching Harbour Island to two turns.

“She turns off nice enough,” he said. “She’s a beautiful filly, and her personality is just what you’d want.”